Bambi’s Mail Bag: iPod Clone, Is Apple Deceptive?

Apple tries to shut down LuxPro’s Super shuffle iPod clone. No success. Yet. Real exec blasts Apple’s strategy. Again. Tiger launch date rumors grow. Is April the target?

The last shall be first. Friday marked the first of solid rumors regarding Mac OS X “Tiger’s” potential launch date. Rumor site Think Secret says Apple will introduce Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” on April Fool’s Day, and ship Tiger a few weeks later.

Any time now is fine with me. Just make sure it works OK out of the box. It’ll be grrrrrrreat!

Meanwhile, Jack D. Miller’s article on Mac vs. Windows security drew two crowds. Those who hated the article and those who agreed with it.

Mac user “spamvacuum” was in the former category:

“This article would have been accurate about a year ago, but the situation has changed. Service Pack 2 for XP now turns on the Windows firewall by default, although you are still stuffed if you are running 2000 or pre SP2 XP, and will have to turn it on yourself. 

Microsoft, for whatever reason, and there are arguments either way, has decided on a monthly fusilade of updates and patches, usually on the second Tuesday of the month, rather than the ad-hoc arrangement of releasing them ‘as and when’. Non this month though… so far.”

Of course, some Mac users are forced to use a Windows machine at work. Reader “allthegeo” has the more common experience:

“I have been using a Mac almost daily for 20 years. I have been using Windows daily for 6 years.” 

“In 20 years over several Mac OS’s I have never had a virus on any machine.  I spend about 2 hours a year protecting my Macs.” 

“In the 6 years I have been using Windows I have had several viruses. On my Dell laptop using Windows Me I kept the OS and the anti virus software constantly updated and never visited questionable sites with it. It was constantly down with virus attacks.”

The CeBIT consumer electronics show in Germany was a big hit. Except for Apple’s legal team as they tried unsuccessfully to shut down iPod clone maker LuxPro (from Taiwan). The Super shuffle looks exactly like an iPod shuffle.

Readers were unanimous that Apple will do something and that we’ll never see a Super shuffle in the US.

Mac users were also unanimous in their lack of praise for Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser who blasted Apple again. This time our favorite Mac maker (the only) is accused of being deceptive about the iTunes music store.

Reader “nealeaton” had little praise for Real (actually, no one did):

“I am so sick of all these people trashing Apple and the iTMS/iPod phenomenon.” 

“To coin a phrase ‘I pitty the fool’ who thinks they are getting a good deal renting their music for years on end. Lets see, I can rent a song from Napster for what $15/month? What happens if I decide I like the song a lot and want to burn a copy of it…I have to pay again (99 cents, natch) on top of what I have already paid.” 

“No thanks…the Internet Radio stations in iTunes let me listen for free,  then I can go and buy it for 99 cents.”

Tera did an article about the Forbes’ Top Billionaires and their handwriting analysis of top execs. Mac user “tekspek1” says that’s rubbish; but there’s a better way:

“Well, we all know that the “science” of handwriting analysis is just this side of balderdash. Did the analyst know in advance whose handwriting sample was to be interpreted? As in “Here’s a sample of Bill Gates’ handwriting.  What do you think?” Because that scores a duh factor of astronomical proportions.” 

“No, my friends, I fear that measuring the curls in a person’s M’s just doesn’t mean very much. But if we could look at the bumps on their heads, we might really have something.”

Ahhhh. Mac users to the rescue. Now there’s a new way to determine personality traits.